Web Analytics Tools

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:36:03 +0000

Overview: These free and paid tools allow you to track what keywords are sending you traffic, what keywords are profitable, and what keywords lose money. As soon as you start tracking results your campaigns get more efficient because you start focusing on the results.

Tracking where you already rank does not alert you to potential areas of opportunity that you have not yet focused on, but if you track conversions you know what those keywords are worth, and it is easier to rank for keywords related to words you already rank well for than it is to rank for a whole new basket of keywords.

At the bottom of this page is a free video about using web analytics tools.

Free Analytics Tools

These tend to be limited in feature set and give themselves sitewide links on your site, or require you to trust giving a major search engine like Google virtually all your marketing data.

Google Analytics – powerful full featured analytics tool. Even allows you to track your ROI by keyword for each AdWords ad position. Google AdWords also has internal split testing and conversion tracking software.
Google Website Optimizer – allows you to A/B split test landing pages and track how well Google AdWords traffic converts.
Microsoft adCenter Analytics – not publicly launched yet, but accepting invite requests.
Piwik – open source web analytics program
Site Meter – starts off as free, but charges for advanced features
Stat Counter – starts off as free, but charges for advanced features and bandwith usage.
Webalizer – default log analyzer on many servers.
Analog – default log analyzer on many servers.
Awstats – another popular default log analyzer on many servers.

Cheap Paid Analytics Tools

Clicky – cheap web based tool similar to Google Analytics. A few less features, but you are not giving all your data to Google either. Also offers a cheap white label analytics package convenient for SEO firms looking to add another revenue stream to their businesses.
Mint – affordable downloadable analytics program that you set up on your own server. Unlike most other paid analytics programs in Mint does not track conversions.

Affordable Business Analytics Tools

ClickTracks – Downloadable software and hosted options. Starting at $99 a month.
Indextools – Starts at $50 a month.
Weblog Expert – Downloadable log analyzer. Starts at $75.

Expensive / Premium Tools

Background Information on Web Analytics

If you need more background on analytics try the free 44 minute video by Avinash Kaushik.